


Deep Greens and Blues

by lovelornity



Category: Lost
Genre: Coda, Episode Related, F/M, Lost: Post-Island, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 15:55:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20099776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelornity/pseuds/lovelornity
Summary: Remember when we didn't know what the whispers meant? Written after the Season 3 finale.Kate struggles with her choice to leave the island in light of what she left behind.





	Deep Greens and Blues

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published February 15, 2008.

It should have been a welcome sight. For months, she had imagined what this moment might feel like, should it ever come. Never had she envisioned herself uncertain, anxious. The wind kicked up as the rotor blades of the helicopter in front of her picked up speed, and rather than move toward it, she actually backed up into the body standing directly behind her.

The grip on her hand was relaxing, and as the grasp was released altogether, she turned around to face him. She searched for any sign of hesitancy, of loss, but he looked back at her with eyes of stone.

“Kate!” A plea rose up above the roar of the helicopter.

She looked over her shoulder at Jack who was ducking just outside the opening to the passenger compartment of the helicopter. Beyond him, Kate could see four more pairs of eyes looking out at her, clouded with urgency. She turned back to look at the man whom she was leaving behind. His face had softened some. 

“Time’s up, Freckles.” 

There was a brief silence where the two simply looked at one another. Finally, it was Sawyer who spoke, his voice laden with sarcasm.

“I know we been real good at playin’ make believe, but let’s not pretend we’re the ‘goodbye’ kind.”

“James…” Kate began, her voice taking on the tone that frequently accompanied a playful eye roll, but she had never intended to finish that thought. She knew he was right, and she had never been one for goodbyes. They were messy and unwanted, and she had seldom stayed in one place long enough for them to be necessary. But somehow this felt different. It had always been different with him.

Sawyer raised his hands to her cheeks like he did each time he was about to kiss her, and Kate leaned her head back and closed her eyes as his fingers brushed through her hair. But the kiss never came. Her eyes opened as his hands dropped from her face, and his right hand landed on her shoulder, slid down her arm to her elbow, and then moved over to her stomach. She watched as his gaze fixed on his hand for a moment, before he pulled it away as if he had been burned. When he looked back up at her, his eyes were nearly brimming over, and Kate was taken aback at this open display of emotion. He always tried so hard to mask what he was feeling, but after all they had been through, he had become an open book to her. As quickly as it had appeared however, the emotion drained from his face, and he once again became the man she had grown used to these long months on the island-- brow furrowed, jaw clenched. And she smiled.

“We’ll be back for you.” 

It need not have been said, but somehow the words fumbled out of her mouth anyway. Sawyer snorted and flashed a dimple.

“We both know you won’t, Kate.”

His eyes burned intensely into hers for one last instant before he grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a gentle shove toward the helicopter. He made eye contact with Jack who nodded, then he stepped back to fall in with the others as they watched their last chance at escaping the island lift off from the green where it had rested for the past two weeks and disappear into the cloudy sky above. From inside the helicopter, Kate could still see him as he broke away from the group and disappeared into the jungle. 

\--

The beat of her heart throbbed in her ears as she pulled her car in behind his. Already she could see him in the glow of her headlights. As she climbed out of the car, she was stunned by the face of the man who staggered toward her. It had been one thing to hear his vodka-soaked voice on her cell phone and in voicemails she could never listen to in their entirety, but it was quite another to come face to face with the shell-of-a-man who stood before her. The closer she came to him, the more her heartbeat pounded inside of her head. The sight of him forced a memory from the back of her mind: the whir of helicopter blades temporarily filled her ears and her stomach felt warm, as if the hand that had touched it then had never left. She suddenly wanted to run, to get back into her car and drive away, but she made herself speak.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

Even as he spoke, she could feel herself inching back toward her car. With every word from his lips, the air in her lungs grew heavier. She kept him talking only to distract herself from the claustrophobic feeling that worsened every moment longer she stood there with him. She had to get away.

“I have to go. He’s gonna be wondering where I am.”

The words had barely left her lips before he grabbed hold of her shoulders and pulled her back. His fingers gripped her arms so tightly that the trembling of his body passed through his fingertips and sent a shiver down her spine. His face was close enough to hers the she could smell the liquor on his breath.

“We were not supposed to leave.” He pleaded with her, his tear-stained eyes frantically searching hers. 

“Yes we were,” she snapped and pried loose from his arms. Her blood was boiling. She should never have come. “Goodbye, Jack.”

\--

The house was pitch black when she pushed open the door. Running her hand along the wall beside her, she flicked on a light switch. Pale light from an ornate lamp on a nearby table illuminated the room. Kate sighed as she looked briefly around the house that never felt like home. She set the keys down on a table near the door and made her way to the second floor of the house. She caught herself walking soundlessly on the balls of her feet, and it gave her pause. Old habits were hard to break. There was no need to creep through her own home, no reason to fear what might be lurking at the top of the stairs. Kate threw a light switch and illuminated the hallway. There were several closed doors leading to rooms with no furniture in them, but the one closest to her remained open. 

In the light that filtered into the room from the hallway, she could see the silhouette of a man slumped over in an easy chair, his chest rising and falling with the slow, steady rhythm of deep sleep. She neared the chair and leaned down to place a small kiss on her forehead.

“Thanks, Daddy,” she whispered, but Sam Austen did not stir. 

As she straightened back up and pushed the hair away from her eyes, movement outside the open window just behind the chair caught her eye. A figure had stepped under the street lamp just in front of the house and was looking straight into the window. 

The little hairs on the back of her neck stood straight up as she squinted her eyes in an attempt to see more clearly. As her eyes focused on what she could now tell was a man, a warm, spring breeze picked up, rustling the new leaves on the trees that lined the drive and sending the curtains inside the window fluttering like ghosts. She froze at what sounded like voices on the wind.

Whispers. 

No, not here. 

She took a step back from the window, her eyes still fixed on the figure of the man on the sidewalk below. The whispers grew louder and more distinct, until one voice rose above the others.

“Time’s up, Freckles.”

Her heart stopped in her chest, and all went silent. She realized she had been holding her breath and let out a small gasp.

There was a thump behind her, and hand clutched to her chest, she spun around to meet a pair of blue eyes, heavy with sleep. She took a step forward and was rewarded by a flash of dimples, and Kate winced as she always did. Just like his daddy’s. 

She leaned over the crib and pulled the standing toddler into her arms. Her heart was still thumping wildly against her chest, but her son snuggled up to it anyway.

“Sweet baby, James,” she whispered to him in a sing-song voice. He hummed for a moment and drifted off against her shoulder.

Kate glanced out the window. The street was empty. 

The boy in her arms sighed in his sleep, and as she stroked the curls of his light brown hair, her mind raced. 

_“We were not supposed to leave.”_ Jack’s voice echoed inside her head. _“We were not supposed to leave.”_ Those words had replayed in her head over and over again on the drive back until they had lost all meaning. 

She looked down at the sleeping child in her arms and she knew. _“Yes we were.”_

As she tucked her son (“our son”) back into bed, and her eyes strayed back over to the open window, she knew. They were meant to leave, but now, now they were supposed to go back.


End file.
